


His Move

by semaphoredrivethru



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Chess, Gen, weasley is our king
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-04-23
Updated: 2005-04-23
Packaged: 2017-11-03 18:33:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semaphoredrivethru/pseuds/semaphoredrivethru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For cugami, because I fangirl her artwork so very hard and because she did <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/cugami/1046789.html">this</a> and wanted fic to go with it. It’s more flash fic, but it’s what came to mind.</p>
    </blockquote>





	His Move

**Author's Note:**

> For cugami, because I fangirl her artwork so very hard and because she did [this](http://www.livejournal.com/users/cugami/1046789.html) and wanted fic to go with it. It’s more flash fic, but it’s what came to mind.

His best friend is their leader’s puppet, dangling on strings that have had him tangled and bound since he was a baby. His other best friend is a slave to the ancient knowledge that she prays and believes will be the key to saving them all and ending the war. His least favourite professor is held on not one, but two leashes that both pull on the same collar of spikes, dragging him between two masters that care little for the dreams of others.

His parents take orders and risk their lives, claiming it is the best way they know to protect his life and those of his sister and brothers. His peers drill their deadly skills that are more offence than defence. His one-time rivals stand shoulder to shoulder with those they would once upon a time have gleefully stabbed in the back, rather than kneel to kiss the hem of a madman’s robe, stained in the blood of innocents.

His world is falling apart and no one seems able to control the rapid and dizzying disintegration. His leader is an old man, not doddering and foolish as many would think, but much too focused to think of anything beyond the great end that they all sense is looming. His enemy cares not for anyone save himself and nothing but his desires to rule and be worshiped as the god he now believes himself to be. His life is in danger every moment of every day, his childhood long since stripped away by the bloody and uncaring hands of war.

His place in all this is to sit at a table and plan. His chess pieces, charmed silent not by magic but by their own knowledge that this is no longer a game of fun or intellect, sit quietly on the board, still as the grave. His eyes do not see the black and white marble or the neat and orderly squares when he looks upon them with narrowed eyes and furrowed brow; he sees the blank faces of walking corpses and scouting parties never returned. His hands wrap around the cool marble as he searches, always searches for the checkmate that will end this war of which he has somehow found himself one of the directors.

His friends have asked why he uses the black pieces as them and he cannot give an answer that he does not think foolish. His only thought is that shadows hide and protect, so he must do what he can as he risks their lives time and again in a chess match that he wishes he had never taken on. His mind is never at rest, not until this moment, when he finally at long last sees what he must do.

His blue eyes are like fire and like ice all at once as he puts the pawn he has always fancied as having a faint, jagged scratch across its face out in the open. He knows it will be too tempting for the White King, who has always been too hungry for extra kills. He moves a knight to frighten the king over a space, only to move another over once the other knight joins in to help spring the trap. He sees that there is a way out for the king, and he counters with his last bishop, a tall spectre with a dark hood and a midnight black sickle that he has cut his fingers on many times while setting the board.

He watches as the White King looks around, and then sags its head in defeat. He sees when the other white pieces follow suit and the few remaining black pieces take the moment of quiet to give their own thanks that perhaps their servitude is finished. He does not miss, though, that the pawn, his bait, does not look away but rather straight ahead with his hauntingly empty eyes as though to remind that the most dear of prices could be paid if he is wrong. 

He does not want to think about that as he jumps up and calls loudly for someone, anyone, to come and see. He has found it. He thinks he may have done it.

He has checkmate.


End file.
